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The U.K.'s National Health Service Licenses JDS
deputydink writes "Recently the NHS licensed from Sun 5000 seats of its JDS system for tactical deployments within the health care service, adding that it deemed JDS a viable desktop alternative for certain types of user communities. The NHS has already deployed JDS in its back-office. This could be the high profile boost for JDS subscription services that Sun needs."
As an ex Sun guy with plenty of JDS experience let me just say this is farking insane unless these tactical deployments are not mission critical deployments. For desktop use by admins or execs, that's cool but I wouldn't want anyone in the emergency room using it.
Given the NHS's spectacular track record in failed IT projects, I have grave concerns that this has as much a chance of ending up being a PR nightmare as it it does a triumph where Sun is concerned.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
How does one define "tactical deployments"?
Are we talking ER situations? Homeland Defense/Emergency offices? I mean, the article leaves little mention, just stating that they are to be used in "tactical deployments"?
Any docs out there who can explain?
-thewldisntenuff
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I work as a network administrator for a national architectural research institution. Recently, we replaced several dozen aging Windows XP workstations with Sun thin-clients running the JDS system for to run the proprietary topographic software our employees use and I am very impressed. The integrated system managment tools are bar-none the best I've ever used, and a distributed system offers users much more power than they would ever need, without the extra cost of running an NT-based domain. Sun really has built an excellent product.
I just hope they updated the integrated Mozilla browser!
The last time I used JDS, the version of Mozilla preinstalled was 1.4, which did not support NTLM proxy authentication and thus I had major issues getting the computer on the Internet.
In the end, I just installed Firefox.
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"The NHS has already deployed JDS in its back-office."
/. article is wrong. More likely that they deployed JES (Java Enterprise Server)
Probably not, although I hesitate to suggest that a
Its probably one of the reasons in part why Sun instead of say Red Hat or SuSE would have got the contract. Once the decision to go with Linux was made you look at who will provide the support, and being the Health Service and the 'tactical deployment' description, I would assume that would mean a 24/7 on-site support ability. By this point it comes down pretty much to IBM or Sun. There's a good chance the NHS has a prior relationship with one of them, if not both, so the past experience with that coupled with what the decision makers knew of their reputation with the ultimate leveler, the cost, is what will draw the final decision. While IBM is no slouch when it comes to security, they are moving an unaltered Red Hat or SuSE, both of which have frequent security bulletins, while Sun also has a decent record of security, and modifies Linux to create the JDS, which at the very least could give the impression that it might be the more secure of the two.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
To get the best deal out of MS ala Telstra Australia.
while deploying alternate desktop environs in a health-care setup:
1. Printing: Best way forward is internet printing. Very difficult to get the right drivers working the right way on each desktop, but for internet printing.
2. Drivers for medical devices: Most devices come with Windows drivers only. Hardware mfrs. and Linux distors really need to take some effort here. By the way, this is a weal area for Windows versions as well. Every new OS release or Service Pack screws up some or other device driver or dll, and some app stops working!
Currently I use Windows on those m/cs that are interfaced to these devices or printers. There's no major issue with plain Linux distros and no major advantage having JDS instead.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
"I find it pretty interesting that Sun was able to score this deal in an area where security is such an important aspect"
You mis-spelled "cost".
But here we don't have HIPPAA, and everyone in the NHS runs windows computers with viruses on them (not as much of an exaggeration as you think), it's common for whole departments to lose their computing facilities when a new virus hits, it's common for confidential information to make its way from a virus-infected computer to the internet. Many [most?] computers are never patched, and while they've got a firewall "around" the whole lot, everyone who's got laptops in their office (many doctors use tablet PCs) knows how effective one exterior firewall is.
They were once trying to roll-out an entire public-key cryptosystem in one go, which was the last time security was mentioned. I don't know if they were going to install a separate "prescription-signing" computer in each doctor's office, or install something on their Windows machine, but either way the talk is of extremely high cost, and extremely low value. Perhaps all the years of removing "non-medical" administrative positions are taking their toll, but more likely it's this way because everything related to UK government is that way.
Of course, people on slashdot will say that nothing should be connected to the internet, but then medical researchers are just the same as physics researchers -- websites and email addresses and newsgroups are very useful tools for doing research. And the surgeries in the shetland-end of nowhere with dial-up access to the mainland probably aren't going to have security of any sort, indeed I doubt that anyone has the funds to implement "military grade" 2-unconnected-networks security.
They just signed another contract for a quintillion windows licenses a year ago for both government and the NHS, if that gives any idea of their preferred platform
Hm, Sun's Java runtime == Open Source? I think not.
StarOffice == Open Source? I think not.
If we'd stuck to calling Free Software, Free Software, we wouldn't have to put up with this nonsense, but as it is we have a situation where people are in the throws of defining new government policy in the UK stating that the default purchasing policy in the UK should include "Open Source" software, despite the fact that nobody involved seems to have any clear idea what Open Source means.
That allows Sun to come in and say something like "StarOffice is Open Source becasue you get to see some of the source" and the NHS folks presumably say "Fair enough, where do we sign for a site license?"
I'm surprised Microsoft don't go totally ape about this, but then again, they probably think that JDS is open source too. It wouldn't surprise me if the Sun sales folks think that it's Open Source, in the same way that most SUSE sales folks used to think that SuSE was Open Source, despite the old YaST license.
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